Aurora Borealis

The northern lights, or aurora borealis, is most definitely a sight to behold. If you've never seen it, there's almost no point of reference to which it can really be compared. The sky just seems to light up in fantastic colors. Thanks to an "impressive" solar flare early this past Thursday, it's being reported that a large stretch of land that includes places like New York and Michigan should be privy to a fantastical instance of the northern lights tonight.

Last month, we talked about how the "baby comet" C/2011 L4 was set to buzz the Earth. It was going to be visible to the naked eye, if you knew where to look and had clear skies. And Lil' 4, as I call it, didn't disappoint. It may have been young, but comet C/2011 L4 timed its flyby with northern lights in the skies of Norway two nights ago, and you can watch it now.

Earlier this month there was a large M1-class solar flare near an Earth-sized sunspot known as AR1692, and the resulting Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) washed over the Earth two days later on March 17th. The event resulted in a massive Aurora Borealis display that photographer Göran Strand captured, and he compressed the four-hour event down to a beautiful three minutes.

As readers will recall, the sun has been pretty dang active as of late making this a particularly good year for spotting the Northern Lights. This video, shot by photographer Antti Pietikäinen, gives us a glimpse of the show over Muonio, Finland last night. These amazing lights were probably sparked by an M-class flare which shot out of the sun on March 8 from the same active region -- sunspot 1429 -- that spat out last weeks enormous X-class flare. I think I speak for all of us too far south to see the aurora when I say we're jealous.
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The result of some recent solar storm activity was breathtaking aurora stretching over most of Europe. This spectacular sight was filmed in Norway by Helge Mortensen. If you're curious about spotting some aurora by you, don't worry: NOAA's got a map for that.
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Using low-light footage captured by cameras aboard the International Space Station, Michael König was able to put together this jaw-dropping video of the Earth as seen from space. As the station skims along high above the Earth, cities, storms, and eccentric aurora spin below. It's a truly mesmerizing sight, one that most of us won't ever be able to see first hand.
König also released the list of locations that appear in the video. Read on after the break to see what, exactly, you're seeing.
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Nate Bolt had some very patient neighbors on his flight from Los Angeles to Paris, who didn't mind his camera clicking every few seconds as he documented the trip for this stunning stop-motion video. Compressing 11 hours into two minutes, this video has beautiful mountains, stars wheeling overhead, and even an appearance by the Aurora Borealis. The view almost makes up for the lack of peanuts.
(via Laughing Squid)

Terje Sorgjerd, a Norwegian photographer, obtained this footage of the Aurora Borealis in the regions of Kirkenes and Pas National Park over the course of a week, then slapped it together to make the above gorgeous time-lapse video.